[329] Le Baker’s Chronicle of Osney. Avesbury.
[330] Foedera, III. 221.
[331] Avesbury, Rolls ed. 425.
[332] Blomefield (Hist. of Norfolk, III.) says that the writ to Norwich in 1355 was for 120 men-at-arms to be sent to Portsmouth by Sunday in mid-Lent.
[333] Avesbury, pp. 427-8.
[334] Ib. p. 425.
[335] Ib. p. 461.
[336] Avesbury, p. 431.
[337] Thorold Rogers, Hist. of Agric. and Prices, I. 367, “according to an account quoted by Misselden in his Circle of Commerce.” The sack of wool contained 52 cloves of 7 lbs. each, or 364 lbs. It appears from a statute of 5 Ric. II. that 240 wool-fells were equivalent, for duty, to one sack of wool. In Rogers’ tables, the wool-fell is usually priced at about the value of 1½ lbs. of wool, which was at the same time about the average clip of a sheep. The present average clip would be at least four times as much. The colonial bale of wool is of the same weight as the medieval sack, but would represent 40 to 60 fleeces, instead of about 240. At the smallest of the estimates in the text, the wool of 7,680,000 sheep would have been exported in a year. Avesbury’s estimate would mean an annual export to foreign countries of the clip of about 24,000,000 sheep. The average price of a sack of wool just before the Black Death was about £4 in money of the time; the period immediately following the plague was one of low prices; but from 1364 to 1380, the price was uniformly high.
[338] Foedera, III. 186.